


save the princess, save the world

by evilythedwarf



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, Evil Snow White, F/M, enchanted forest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-21 22:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3706547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilythedwarf/pseuds/evilythedwarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is an Evil Queen in the Enchanted Forest, and it is not Regina.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks a lot to freifraufischer for posting the theory that inspired this story and threw my life into the chaos that is tumblr. Thank you. Really.

1.

She wakes up alone, which is not uncommon, these days, but the sun is too high and the voices outside of her bedroom door are too loud. She’s slept late, and she doesn’t often get that privilege anymore.

 Her limbs ache and the soreness in her lower back is ever present, but still she smiles as she rises, searching for a dressing gown before realizing she’s still wearing the clothes she was too exhausted to remove last night. She runs a hand through the mess that is her hair and wraps it around itself at the base of her skull, comfortable in the knowledge that no one will notice, and if they do they won’t care, that she looks anything but perfect this morning.

  There are 3 strangers at her table, but that is not uncommon either. There are always strangers, these days. They stare at her with polite curiosity, and she’s sure that she looks much different in the light of day than she did last night when she was opening her door to them and ushering them inside, when she was cleaning up their scratches and cuts and struggling to see under the blood and grime with no more light than a candle, harshly telling them to be quiet or else.

 A pot of what looks to be oatmeal starts to boil over and she hurries to the stove, wrapping a cloth around her hand, trying not to burn herself as she moves it from the fire. Her hands are not as clumsy as they once were, but they’re not as adept at the task as she wishes them to be.

 “I’ll get that,” he says from the door. He looks tired, which means that for all the sleep she got last night, he probably didn’t get any at all. He helps her with the pot, and then he wraps his arms around her waist, buries his face against and takes a deep breath.

 “He didn’t make it?” she whispers, and he nods his head in confirmation, though she knew already. He smells like sweat and blood and dirt. He probably just finished digging the grave. His arms tighten for a fraction of a second, and then he lets go.

 “My wife will see to whatever you need,” he tells the strangers who are still sitting around the kitchen table.  “Eat. Rest. Sleep, if you can. I’d ask that you wait until after dark to continue your journey, though” he adds.

 The old woman nods and when the young man, more of a child, really, he can’t be older than 14, starts to talk, starts looking around to see if anyone else followed Robin in from the barn, she wraps a hand around his arm and shushes him.

 “I’m sorry,” Robin says. “It was,” he hesitates, stops. He looks at his wife but can’t meet her eyes. “It was the arrow.”

 The old woman nods again, but she still has a tight grip on the boy’s wrist. She whispers to him, things that they can’t quite make out from across the kitchen, and they leave the strangers alone to their grief.

 They walk outside. Robin leans against the side of their small house, tired but alert. There’s not likely to be any trouble at this time. The black guards don’t like the light of day, as a rule.

 She doesn’t stray far from the house. There are sheets she left hanging to dry the night before, and she should pick them and fold them up.  _It was the arrow_. There are chicken to feed and horses to brush.  _It was the arrow_  . She should take a bath and deal with the bird’s nest in her hair.  _It was the arrow_  . She should take her husband inside and put him to bed, make sure he rests, tend to his wounds.  _It was the arrow_  . She should start work on that mending basket, mediocre as her skills with a needle are.

  She can’t move.

  _It was the arrow_

 She can’t breathe.

  _It was the arrow_

 She can’t think.

_It was the arrow_

 She can’t believe it.

 She doesn’t want to believe it.

 She doesn’t want to stay inside her own house and see the grieving faces of these people who are being chased away from their homes for who knows what reason, who have to run under the cover of night, who are risking their lives because all they want is their freedom, because…  _It was the arrow._

 Because she ran.

 “It’s my fault,” she says, finally.

 “No.”

 “I did this,” she says.

 “Regina, no.”

 But she knows. Regina knows.

 The arrow was laced with poison, and that’s what killed the poor man that lays buried in the forest behind their house. The black guards aren’t very skilled in swinging anything but a pickaxe, and their aim is anything but good but with poisoned arrows, they need only a little luck.

 “Please stay home tonight,” she pleads with him. “Please.”

 “You know I can’t.”

 She knows.

 “You didn’t do this Regina.”

 “I hated her,” she says. “Even when I loved her, I hated her.”

 “And yet it was only when you left that she turned into this. It’s not your fault.”

 He walks closer to her. Now that she’s calmed down she’s ready to be held against him once more. Ready to take comfort in him, even if his words do her, and him, no good.

 “You only walked away,” he tells her. “There’s no fault in that.”

 Yes, she thinks, there is.

 

2.

“He looks much improved,” Robin tells her, making her smile.

“He is,” she replies. She slowly approaches the horse, hums at him to get his attention and gently lays a palm against his side. “Hello boy,” she tells him, he bristles, snorts, looks away from her. She continues to hum as she reaches into her pocket. “Is this what you want?” she asks, as he gently takes the sugar cube out of her hand. He neighs and shakes his head happily, and then he trots off towards the woods.

“I still can’t manage to pen him in,” she says, frustrated.

“He’ll be alright,” Robin shrugs. He walks towards her, now that the danger of being kicked in the chest has passed. When they found the stallion, he had a hurt leg and a badly scraped side, and was uncooperative, to say the least. He took a special dislike to Robin and wouldn’t let him get near. Now, months later, he is still skittish around most people, but not especially violent. Robin is cautious though. He takes her hand in his and gently, always gently, pulls her towards him. “You did this,” he whispers.

“Robin,” she starts, but he turns her around, holds both of her hands, now, and looks straight at her.

“This, you did. You made him better when we thought there was nothing to be done.”

“Robin, you don’t understand.”

“I understand you feel guilty. And I wish you didn’t.”

He sighs, and lets go of her.

She wishes she could tell him exactly what it is she’s feeling, but she can’t even put it into words herself. She’s been so happy with him, happier than she deserves, happier than she thought she could have been, and she doesn’t think she could tell him that either.

“Come with me,” she tells him, “I want to show you something.”

She takes him inside the house, to their bedroom. She makes him sit on the edge of the bed and stands between his legs, her hands on his shoulders.

“I never told you,” she starts, “how scared I was.”

“Regina,” he whispers. He’s always saying her name, softly, carefully. He’s always so careful with everything that is her and she loves him so much for it. Even after all this time, her name on his lips still makes her smile.

“I was so afraid.”

She kisses him, hard, smiles against his lips, laughs, a little bitterly, maybe, but it makes her ache, to remember that night.

“I refused to meet you.”

He knows. She’s told him this story before.

“I never told you why I changed my mind.”

“Why did you?” he asks. His words are raspy, and she can feel his breath against her cheek. She steps a little closer.

“I went back to the castle,” she tells him. “I went upstairs to my room and tried to forget it. I didn’t want to think about it. You. I didn’t even want to contemplate the chance of a happy ending. I thought I couldn’t… I thought there was nothing left for me anymore…”

She straddles his lap and they kiss for a long time. Regina unbuttons his shirt, unhurriedly, as f they have all the time in the world. It’s light outside, still.

Their kisses turn soft and lazy, and they lay in bed together, Regina tracing patterns on his skin, following the ripples in his muscles every time she brushes her fingertips against his lower stomach. She knows him so well by now. She kisses ever scar, and every bruise, and she touches every inch of him that she can see, wishing that he didn’t have to go tonight. After he unlaces her dress, she takes his hand, so big, his fingers so thick against her dainty ones, and she places it against her chest, a little left of the middle.

“When the king came back,” she tells him, and she can feel him tense at once. He hates it when she mentions her former husband, so she doesn’t for the most part, but today she must. “He’d been told that I’d left the castle,” she says, “and he wasn’t happy. He,” she stops, closes her eyes. “He locked me n the tower. He did that when he was… displeased.”

She opens her eyes, looks at Robin, with his warm gaze who hasn’t moved an inch. His hand is still on her chest, and he must have felt the way her pulse quickened. She takes that hand and presses kisses against each rough finger. She sighs and brings his face to hers and then they are kissing once more, and she makes an effort to forget, she reminds herself that this is now and she’s happy and loved and the man she loves is right here next to her. This man will never hurt her.

“I love you,” he says, and she smiles, and little by little, and not so slowly really, rather quickly, she forgets about the tower and she remembers him, and she remembers now, and she’s here, in the present. With him.

It takes him longer, of course. Robin loves her. He loves her so much. He is kind, and it pains him when she is anything but happy so Regina has to show him just how happy he makes her. She’s wrapped around him and biting his earlobe when the tension leaves him completely, and she’s straddling him once more, his limbs splayed around him on the bed, when she finally makes him laugh.

Later, when he pulls a sheet to cover them both she stops him. She takes his hand in hers again and guides it to her naked back.

“I wanted to show you this,” she says. She helps him trace the scar, now half faded, on her lower back.

“What happened?”

“He did it,” she says. “The night I decided to leave.”

Robin wraps his whole body around hers and she can feel him tremble. She never wanted to tell him this, but he must know. He needs to know.

“Snow.”

“What?”

“It was Snow who let me go.”

 

3.

The girl is youngerthan Regina, though not by much, and she is scared out of her mind.

“I’m sorry,” she chants. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” until the words blur together. She pulls her red cloak tighter around herself, backing into a corner of the unused stall, and really, Regina would rather leave her to it but she’s hurt and bleeding, and someone needs to make sure she’s not in any immediate danger.

“I need to look at your arm. Please.”

The girl shakes her head, pulls her knees against her chest. It doesn’t look like she’s in pain, not physical pain in any case, but Regina still crouches next to her. She takes her time, talking to her like she would a spooked animal. Eventually she lets her take hold of the injured arm, her big blue eyes staring intently into Regina’s fingers as they probe the long scratches.

“This needs to be cleaned,” Regina says, but the girl starts to shake again.

“I’m fine,” she says. “It’ll be fine.”

“I don’t want it to get infected.”

“I’m a fast healer. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

Regina worries anyway but she doesn’t insist. She sits against the opposite wall of the stall and stares out of the stable’s window. Dawn is fast approaching and the riders aren’t back yet. They sit in silence for a long time, and eventually the girl’s breath’s even out. For a moment, Regina thinks she might have fallen asleep, but then she speaks.

“Is he your husband?” the girl asks.

Regina looks at her, a frown on her face.

“The man who found me. I was hiding in the forest and he found me. He told me to run. He told me to find the path and to run, and to keep running until I found the house with the red door. He told me I’d be safe, and then he…”

“Were they following you? The Queen’s Guards?”

She nods.

“What did you do?”

The girl starts to shake again, and she clutches at her cloak.

“He is my husband,” she spats. “And he is out there right now, possibly risking his life. For you. Now tell me. Why does she want you?”

Regina stands, her hands form into tight fists at her sides and she has to grasps for every ounce of self control she has not to actually shout. And then she has to hold on to the stall door because otherwise she might fall down on the floor and not be able to get up again. It’s dawn.

The sun has come up and Robin hasn’t come back.

She takes a deep breath. She walks towards the wall and shuts the window closed.

“You will stay here,” she says. “Don’t you dare try to leave.”

She doesn’t even wait for confirmation that the girl has heard or understood her. She marches outside and stands in front of the barn. The place was practically derelict when they found it, but Robin fixed it for her. With his own two hands. That terrified girl inside is hiding in the stall he built for her horse. Robin. He did that for her. And he rides out every night trying to fix something that she broke and now he is gone and she doesn’t know he will be back.

She takes a deep breath and walks towards the house. She grabs apples and cheese. A jug of water. Some clean clothes. She calms herself down.

“Here,” she tells the girl, handing her the stuff.

“Thank you,” she stutters. “I’m sorry,” she adds.

Regina shakes her head.

“It’s not your fault,” she admits. “He would have been out there anyway.”

Back inside the house, Regina pours herself some tea and sits in the table, waiting. Robin will be back, and everything will be fine, or he won’t and she’ll have to do something, anything, about it.

Suddenly, she feels a familiar tingling in the back of her skull, she stands up, kicking the chair behind her and spilling her tea.  

“You might want to consider what happened the last time you helped a troubled little girl, dearie,” he giggles. “I don’t think that ended up well for you.”

“What are you doing here?” she manages to ask, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Do you think about it? Do you?”

“Leave!” she shouts, and she wishes she didn’t sound like begging.

“Would you do it again? Mhm… That is the question, is it not? If you knew then what you know now, would you still race after her?”

“Why are you here?”

“Inquiring minds want to know! Think about it, darling. You will be thinking about it! And when you find yourself with an answer… you know who to call.”

“You said it yourself, you can’t change the past.”

“Oh, but I won’t,” he sings. He bursts into giggles then. “I won’t,” he repeats, and then he disappears.

It’s not the first time he’s invaded her home, but it leaves her unsettled all the same. So unsettled that the sound of the horses takes her completely by surprise. She runs outside, expecting to see Robin’s grinning face, to be swept into his arms and kissed senseless.

Robin is not there.

“I’m sorry,” John says, “I’m so sorry.” He dismounts, stumbles, and she runs to his side. He’s bleeding, quite profusely, from a wound on his side. “I’m so sorry,” he repeats. “They got him. Regina, they got him.”

 

4.

Regina is donescrubbing the blood from her hands, scraping the grime from under herfingernails, and now she’s taking a moment. She closes the door behind her and presses the pads of her fingers against her closed eyes.

She pulled the linens from the bed earlier, but the blood seeped through anyway, staining the mattress. It doesn’t matter. After tonight, it’s unlikely that she’ll ever sleep here again, but she shares that bed with Robin, every night, almost every night, they lay there side by side. She falls asleep, always after him, to the sound of his breathing. And today his best friend bled out to death on their bed.

 She gathers her hair in a braid, messy and hurried and she ignores how much her hands are shaking. John was kind and sweet, and if she could afford it, she would mourn him properly. She unbuttons her filthy dress and kicks it off, hesitating for only a second before walking to Robin’s dresser and taking out one of his shirts. It’s rough against her skin, and it smells like him, like pine cones and the wax he uses for his bow string, and she would cry, she would, she would fall down to the floor and never get up again, if he wasn’t out there waiting for her.

 When she’s ready, she walks outside, her back straight, her steps firm, every inch the queen her mother raised her to be. Inside the barn, the girl is still huddled in a corner and Regina fights the urge to scream.

 “What’s your name?” she asks.

 “Everyone calls me Red,” the girl says.

 “I don’t care what they call you,” Regina tells her, walking closer, until she is staring down at her. “What’s your name?”

 “R- Ruby,” she says. “My name is Ruby.”

 “Why were they after you?” Regina asks. Ruby starts to shake again and that is just too much. “Oh, spare me the theatrics,” she says. Behind her, she hears Tucks uneven tired, uneven steps. “Talk!” she orders.

 “Regina!” Tuck tries to intervene but the look she sends him is enough to silence him.

 “I said talk,” she tells the mess of a girl who is now standing on shaky legs n front of her.

 “She killed them all,” she whispers. “The Queen. “She killed them all. My mother, her pack. All of them. ”

 “You’re a wolf!” Tuck exclaims, backing away.

 “She’s hardly dangerous,” Regina tells him, annoyed. She looks at the girl again and nods. “Why didn’t she kill you?”

 “There was a man, he wanted, he wanted me. He said, he wanted to keep me.” Ruby looks away and Regina finds herself surprised at the anger curling in her stomach, surprised at any feeling other than worry over Robin.

 “He said he wanted to study me,” Ruby tells them. “They took me to the castle. They kept me underground. I don’t know, I don’t know where. The bars where so strong I couldn’t, I tried to escape but I couldn’t get out. Even on the full moon I couldn’t get out.”

 “And yet here you are.”

 “Two nights ago, the door was open. I woke up and there was no one there. I just walked out and nobody followed.”

 “And you didn’t think it might be a trap?”

 “I just wanted to go home.”

 “Well,” Regina says, turning around. “Feel free to… go home.”

 Regina is leading the horses to the forest edge when Ruby runs out of the barn, calling her name.

 “What do you want?” she asks, annoyed.

 “I’ll go with you,” she says.

 “Don’t be ridiculous.”

 “I’m really strong.”

 “I don’t care. We only have two horses, you’ll slow us down.”

 “I’ll walk. I’m very fast.”

 Regina takes a deep breath.

 “I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have,” she stops, hesitates. “My husband is all I have, but I shouldn’t blame you for what happened.”

 “I heard laughter,” Ruby says. “That night. That’s what woke me up.”

 

5.

Her horse is difficult, and he doesn’t want to be ridden, that’s for sure. It was a struggle just to saddle him and Tuck had paled when he’d seen her climb atop the animal, but they didn’t have much of a choice, not if they wanted to take Ruby with them. And Regina needs Ruby to go with them.

The road that goes across the forest is dark, but she knows it like the back of her palm. Robin taught her well. Before they got married, before they fell in love, really, they used to ride together. Regina wouldn’t talk much, but Robin wouldn’t shut up. He told her about every bend of the road, about every tree and every rock he had hidden behind, and slowly, oh so slowly, he taught her to trust him.

And now here she is, riding without him.

Ruby doesn’t sit her horse well, but as long as she doesn’t fall down Regina can’t be bothered.

“I’m really am sorry you know,” the girl says. “I never meant for anyone to get hurt.”

“No one ever does,” Regina replies.

There’s an all too familiar tingling in the back of her neck, and her horse bristles before he stops moving altogether.

“Leave me alone,” she says, knowing the others can’t hear her. It’s one of his favorite tricks, freezing the rest of the world in order to harass her.

“I told you! Helping little girl hardly ever ends in anything but tears.”

“Did you let her go?” Regina asks, nodding towards Ruby. “Did you know this would happen?”

“How could I, dearie?” he giggles then, finding her annoyance extremely entertaining, probably. “Just remember,” h says, “one day soon you’ll have an answer for me and then you’ll call.”

“I won’t,” Regina says.

He disappears with another ridiculous giggle and the world comes alive around her again.

“I won’t,” she repeats, but nobody hears her.

 

6.

They get her last.

She doesn’t run or hide. She doesn’t even try to fight them off.

Regina stands in the middle of the dark courtyard and waits for them to seize her.

They don’t harm her but by the time they drag her to the dungeons she’s shaking.

He must still be alive. He must. She’d know, if he wasn’t. She would have felt a part of her die. Robin is still alive, somewhere. Perhaps inside this very castle.    

They take her to the farthest cell, rock on three sides and solid steel bars. They throw her inside and leave her there without a word and Regina waits.

It’s been a long time since she’s been held against her will, but she remembers the feeling well. Still, she must remain calm if she wants even a chance to survive this.

She sits on the dirt floor, against the cold rock wall. It’s so cold in here. She doesn’t know where Ruby and Tuck are, if the black guards even bothered to capture them or simply killed them on the spot. All the other cells are occupied.

Regina was here once before. Only once. Before she married the King, Snow took her by the hand and led her around the castle, showing her every room and hallway, every garden and balcony. Snow was fascinated by the dungeons as a child, always wanting to play down here, even after her father forbid it. And now she has filled these cells with people who most likely don’t deserve to be here.

She was barely more than a child, the last time Regina saw her. A spoiled child, to be sure, self-centered and oblivious, but… almost sweet, sometimes. Not someone who terrorizes an entire kingdom and kills without a second thought.

Regina’s fingers itch with unreleased magic, but she clenches her fists and closes her eyes. She can’t give in. This doesn’t happen anymore, it shouldn’t happen anymore, but the increasing panic her confinement is causing her  is wrecking havoc on her control.

She doesn’t do magic. She gave it up in exchange for her freedom. For some semblance of a normal life. And though she knows deals with him rarely if ever end well, this was a price she was willing to pay.

She buries her nails on the palms of her hands until she draws blood, it’s painful, but it helps her keep the urge under control. When she opens her eyes again, there’s a stout guard looking at her from outside her cell.

“The Queen will see you in the morning,” he says with a nasty smile.


	2. Chapter 2

7. 

 

Regina doesn’t sleep.

It was dark when they took her down to the dungeons, but without a source of natural light, she doesn’t know how long it will be until Snow comes down for her. She can’t sleep, she can’t rest. She stays there, on the floor, her back against the rocky walls.

She expects him to appear, taunt her, tell her, perhaps, what became of Ruby and Tuck. He always knew just what to say to her to get to her. Regina can feel him, she knows he’s there, but he won’t show himself and that is almost as bad.

She remembers the first time he did it. She was young, so young, perhaps not even twenty yet, and she’d just been returned to the castle after one of their lessons. She was exhausted and disgusted with herself, and when she was summoned by the king that night she almost asked to be excused. But he was her husband, and he was her king and she was ready for him, in her lovely nightdress with her hair brushed shiny and loose.

Afterwards, while her husband slept next to her she covered herself with a sheet, unwilling to stay naked longer than was strictly necessary. She was about to stand up, to get dressed and return to her rooms when she realized she could make it stop. She could make it all stop.

She laid back on the bed next to him and raised a shaking hand to his chest, put it on his sternum, a little to the left. It could have been a caress, she was so careful. She could feel the steady beating of his heart.

Her hand curled slightly, the tips of her fingers pushed against his chest, and the moment his flesh gave way under the pressure, she could feel it, the thrill, a dark excitement that started in the back of her skull and curled around her spine.

“Nah, uh, uh, dearie!”

She almost jumped out of her skin. She quickly grabbed the sheets that had come loose and covered herself, looking up at him.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed.

“You can’t do that,” he told her. He sat at the foot of the bed, and Regina stole a look at the king, but he was still resting easily.

“Why not?” she asked.

“You want something from me, and you’ll get it. I’ll make sure you get everything you deserve, but this, you can’t have.”

“Why not?” she asked again.

“It doesn’t matter! You can’t do it, dearie, and that’s enough. Now be a good little queen and get dressed. We have an early day tomorrow!”

He stayed there, sitting on that bed, while she dressed. He watched her get up and walk back to her rooms, and he never told her why she couldn’t do it, and Regina never tried again, but oh, how she wishes she had.

Her body aches and she’s cold, and she will die, soon, but it’s still a surprise, and she’s still suddenly and inexplicably terrified, when the guards come for her.

“Where are you taking me?” she asks them, in what she hopes is a steady voice.

“The Queen will see you now,” answers one of the guards, the same one who locked her in her cell. “We’re taking you to the tower.”

 

 

8.

 

They have to push her in.

She tries to back down but they close the door behind her. The heavy, unmovable door she remembers so well. She shuts her eyes closed and takes a deep breath but when she opens them the room is the same. Exactly the same.

It’s her tower.

Precisely the way she remembers it. Every detail. Everything but the chair.

She can hear the king screaming at her, his hands wrapped around her arms, hurting her, keeping her in place as she tried to back away.

“You look just like her,” he’d said, “will you betray me too?”

He shook her, enraged, as she pleaded for him to let her go.

“I didn’t do anything,” she told him. “I swear. I just went outside. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

But he wouldn’t listen. It was like he wasn’t even looking at her anymore as he pushed her so hard that she broke the chair she landed on.

She didn’t even notice at first; so relieved that he’d finally let her go, she thought the pain was from the fall. It was his eyes, the panicked look in his eyes as he practically ran from the room, slamming the door closed.

The wood had splintered apart and a piece, a fairly large piece, was imbedded on her back. She didn’t feel it until she tried to stand, until her hands slipped on the blood that was pooling on the floor and everything turned black around her.

The chair is missing now, but the linens seem to have been recently changed. Like the room itself has been waiting for her.

The door creaks open and she steps forward, just enough that whoever is entering won’t collide with her, just a few steps, really, because that’s about all she can manage. She turns around, and immediately wishes she hadn’t.

It’s Snow White. Looking just like she remembers her, her long dark hair loose around her shoulders, wearing a simple white dress. Her arms are hidden behind her back and she’s smiling.

“Do you like it?” she asks. “I kept it right for you,” she simpers.

Regina can’t answer. What is there to say, really? Snow was there that night, she was right here as Regina woke up in her bed, a bandage around her middle and afraid for her life.

“I was so worried,” she said. “Father said you’d taken a fall. Oh, Regina, will you be alright?”

And Regina could have lied and soothed and comforted the girl, but she’d been in pain and scared and sure that if she stayed in the Castle for one more night she was going to die, either at the king’s hands or her own.

So she’d told the truth.

For the first time she told the truth, and when Snow’s eyes filled with tears, when the princess cried and held on to her hands and begged her forgiveness for all the trouble she had caused, when she was vulnerable and willing to do anything if only Regina would forgive her…

“Let me go,” she said.

And Snow, so determined, so earnest, had helped her up from bed, had helped her dress, had dismissed her guards. She’d walked her favorite horse to the secret entrance on the side of the courtyard and hugged Regina, holding on too tight.

“I love you,” she said.                                                      

Regina only looked back once, and the girl was there, tears shining on her face.

The woman in front of her is holding an arrow now, stroking the fletching and smiling, still smiling though her eyes are steely and cold.

“Well,” she says brightly. “I’ll leave you two to it,” she adds, and Regina doesn’t understand, she must have hear wrong but then, then Snow speaks again.

“Bring him in,” she commands as she’s leaving the room, and a couple of guards drag something in, someone, Robin, it’s  _Robin_.

They drop him on the floor and Regina drops to her knees beside him, her hands stroking his face, pleading for him to still be alive.

 

 

9.

 

His breathing is steady but he’s still unconscious and the only sound he’s made was a terrible, painful moan when she tried to set the fingers on his right hand. She can’t move him, he’s too heavy for her to carry and she doesn’t want to drag him, so she’s here, on her knees, with his head cradled on her lap and his battered body across the floor, and she doesn’t know what to do.

She’s been in this exact position before, but she’s no longer a child and she doesn’t need to ask why this time.

She knows why. It’s her. It’s her fault.

She strokes his hair, softly, trying not to cause him pain. He is hurt almost everywhere she can see, long cuts along his arms, and burn marks around his neck.

Snow did this to him. She might not have wielded the knife, but she gave the order, and Regina still doesn’t understand what happened, how this happened, how that crying girl who helped her escape would do this.

Robin stirs, he opens his eyes briefly, winces and moans and her hands hover over his face, her index finger traces his eyebrow, the only place that isn’t cut or scratched.

“Hello milady,” he rasps, and Regina chokes down a sob.

She tries to smile at him, but her eyes cloud with tears, and she’s found him, she has him, here in her arm, and that was all she wanted, really, but now what?

“Shh,” she tells him, “rest.”

He lifts a hand, his good hand, to her face and brushes off her tears. He’s always so kind.

“Rest,” she repeats, wrapping both of her hands around his.

He’s asleep when Snow White returns.

 

 

10.

 

“I didn’t believe him, you know? When he said you’d come back for him.”

She’s walking in circles around them, still in that lovely white dress, still twirling that arrow.

“He was right though,” she smiles brightly. “Here you are.”

“Why are you doing this?” Regina asks, tired of Snow’s games.

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” the princess says. She stops in front of Regina, drops her arms to her sides. One of her hands is wrapped tightly around the shaft of that damn arrow, still. “Does he mean that much to you?” she asks.

“He’s my husband,” Regina says, though she regrets it instantly.

“You had a husband before,” Snow says. “You had no qualms about leaving him behind.”

Regina looks down at Robin’s face. He’s so pale now, and every time she tries to move him his face contorts in pain even in sleep, and she doesn’t know what to do to make it stop.

“You wanted me here,” she says. “Well, Snow, here I am. What do you want?”

Snow White’s smile falls.

“You were supposed to be my mother,” she whispers. “Why couldn’t you do what you were supposed to?”

“I was a child,” Regina spats. Her hands tighten on Robin’s shoulders. “I was no one’s mother.”

“Get up!” Snow orders, but Regina stays in place. “I said get up!”

“I don’t take orders from you.”

“You will if you want your husband to live,” she says as that unsettling smile returns to her face. “Oh, I have a wonderful idea!”

She practically skips out of the room.

It takes two guards to restrain her. Weak as she is, tired and hungry and desperate, she still tries and fights them, with all the strength she has left, as they take Robin away, as they drag his unresponsive body away, until they throw her face first into the bed and they leave the tower, and she’s left there, alone again.

 

 

11.

 

He is tied to a whipping post in the middle of the courtyard, and there’s about a hundred people watching, but she can’t pay attention to them, she can’t concentrate on anyone but Robin, tied up and hurt. He’s so hurt. His shirt is gone and his chest, oh, his chest is covered in bruises and cuts and his abdomen is a rainbow of colors, he must have internal bleeding. He must.

Still, Regina walks with as much dignity and poise as she can manage even as the sight of him is nearly enough to break her.

She’s dressed like a queen. The guards threatened to dress her themselves if she didn’t change into the clothes Snow had sent for her, and they had stood there, watching until she was ready, but she had refused to be humiliated and she had stared at them defiant and proud, even as they leered. They’ve covered her head with a dark red hood. It wouldn’t do for a dead queen to be walking around.

And so here she is, being walked to the courtyard, a half dozen guards surrounding her, like she’s dangerous, like she could escape, even if she wanted to, when Snow has all she holds dear in the world.

They guide her to a dais, not 10 feet away from Robin, and she can see now that he’s awake, barely awake but his eyes are open and focused, and he sees her, he can see her, and he must now it’s her because he struggles against his bonds, briefly, in vain, and she wants nothing more than to go to him, but her guards are still surrounding her, and their crossbows are loaded and ready, and she can’t, won’t risk it. He is almost certainly dead, but if there’s anything she can do, she will.

Snow stands next to her, still looking the picture of innocence.

“This man has been accused of very serious crimes against the crown!” she says. Her voice is strong and steady, and it carries to every corner of the courtyard. “He has been interrogated and confessed to all his crimes!”

“What do you want?” Regina asks her, begs her. “I’ll give you whatever you want,” she pleads; her legs can hardly support her anymore. “I’ll be your mother, Snow. What do you want? Please, tell me what you want.”

Snow rests her forehead against hers. She takes her hand and squeezes and for a second, Regina thinks she might have done it, she might have saved his life.

“I already have a mother,” Snow whispers.

She turns around and announces to the crowd: “Now! Now he will be punished!”

And just like that, a half a dozen arrows are shot. All of them straight into Robin’s chest.

 

 

12.

 

She takes one of the arrows, still covered in his blood, and cuts off the rope that’s all that holds him up, at this point. She tries to lower him gently to the ground but he’s heavy, so much heavier than her, and he falls with a dull thud against the smooth stone yard.

She takes off her hood and lays it across the mess that is his chest, from where she pulled all six arrows. Her hands are surprisingly steady, she’s calm and collected.

Any pain she might have felt has been turned to anger, and as she stands, as she brushes the dirt off her dress, she knows what she will do now, and she knows that she won’t allow Snow White to see the damage she’s inflicted.

“Will you kill me now?” she asks calmly.

Snow is standing on the dais. It’s just them now. After vanishing the audience, the black guards have retreated to the shadows. Before Snow released them from the mines, they rarely saw the light of day. Their crossbows are still at the ready though, and they are all tracking Regina’s movements.

Snow steps down daintily, like the lady she was raised to be. She comes to stand next to Robin’s body, to take a closer look at her newest victim, probably.

“You really did love him,” she says with a pout.

Regina’ anger is simmering and if she still had the ability, if she had the control, she would burn this place to the ground.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” she asks. “To make me suffer?”

Snow crosses her arms in front of her chest and stares at her, but Regina doesn’t move, doesn’t back down, until it’s the princess who has to look away.

Snow never was one for patience.

“Why couldn’t you love me?”

“I did,” Regina says. If she’s about to die there’s no point in lying to herself anymore, is there? “I blamed you Snow, but I also loved you.”

“But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to stay.”

Regina shakes her head.

“You know I couldn’t stay.”

“He said you’d come for him,” Snow says softly, gently almost. “I wish I’d believed him.” She takes Regina’s hand in hers and her face brightens again. An almost manic smile appears on her face. “Come on,” she says. “Mother is waiting for you!”

 

 

13.

 

“I’ve been so worried about you,” Mother says as she brushes her hair. Regina stays still, as still as she can manage. Mother never did like it when she squirmed.

“When the king told me you had been taken by bandits, darling, I was out of myself with concern,” she continues, as she pulls, she pulls so hard, at Regina’s long hair. It’s tangled and matted together in places, and Regina doesn’t care. She doesn’t care about anything. She wants to get out of here. She wants nothing but to be able to leave again, but no one’s going to help her this time.

Snow is curled up in the corner, whimpering. She was bad, Mother said. She wasn’t supposed to kill the bandit.

She was bad and she needed to be punished and Snow, darling Snow, sweet Snow who had known nothing but love and gentleness… Snow can’t  pain. Discipline.

Snow is a mess, and her sad little whimpers are distracting Regina when she’s trying not to fall apart.

“It will all be alright, my darling,” Mother says, leaning down until her head is next to Regina’s. “We’re together now.”

She kisses her temple, a bare brush of her lips, but it sends a shiver down Regina’s spine. It’s wrong. This is wrong.

Mother is gone. Mother was gone. Mother was never supposed to come back.

After the door is locked, from the outside, after Regina is left inside her tower once again, she can breathe again. It means nothing, of course. A locked door might have stopped her husband, if he wasn’t feeling very persistent but nothing can keep her mother away.

“Oh, she left,” Snow moans from the corner. “I made her mad,” she laments, before she buries her head on her knees and goes back to her whimpering.

Regina’s had enough. Any compassion she might feel for the girl, and she does feel it, she does understand that this, what she’s become, if it’s Mother, Cora, if it was Cora who has been whispering in her ear for all this time, then the only thing Snow is guilty of is being too weak to resist.

“Calm down,” she says, but her voice is too soft. Compassion indeed.

“She’s so mad,” Snow repeats, though thankfully the whimpering has ended. Regina gathers her skirt and sits next to her on the floor, just a feet away.

“When?” she asks. “When did Cora come back?”

“Mother,” Snow corrects her. “Mother came looking for you. After you left us. Right after you left us. She missed you so much. We all missed you Regina.”

Snow uncurls herself, slowly, but Regina doesn’t push her further. She remembers how hard it can be to gather one’s thoughts after being punished like that.

“Daddy missed you the most,” she says. “But Mother, oh Regina, she made him so happy. She was so sweet to him. I thought we could be a family. I thought we could be happy.”

She leans against Regina’s shoulder, still trembling, still in pain, probably.

“But then he hurt her. She thought I didn’t know. She tried to hide it from me. But I knew. I could tell. I didn’t want her to leave me. She was my mother. I didn’t want her to leave. I had to stop him, Regina. I had to stop him.”

Snow starts to cry again, fat tears rolling against her rosy cheeks.

“You believe me, don’t you? Regina? You believe me, don’t you? I couldn’t lose her too.”

 

 

14.

 

Snow cries herself to sleep while Regina strokes her hair.

Regina should be mad. She should be consumed by anger and grief and loss, but instead she’s thinking about her chickens.

Robin had laughed, when she’d asked him to help her build a chicken coop. Neither of them were farmers, he’d said. They could barely keep themselves alive and she wanted chickens?

“We have no children-”

“Yet!” he’d interrupted her. “We have no children yet,” he said softly, murmuring against the back of her neck.

“We have no children yet,” Regina said. “But I’d like to know I can keep one alive, if we do have them, someday.”

He laughed. Oh, how he’d laughed.

We can barely keep ourselves alive, he’d said.

“He was right,” she murmurs. She lets out a chuckle. It starts as a chuckle, but it devolves into full laughter. She can’t help herself. This is her life. Three days ago Regina was feeding chicken and trying to train a horse and living her life, just living her life, and now she’s here, exactly, precisely where she started.

Snow doesn’t stir. She’s exhausted, and hurt, and Regina would push her off if she could find it in herself to care.

“I’m glad you can find the humor in the situation, dearie,” he says from the window sill.

“I wondered when you were going to show up,” she says. She looks up at him, at his gleaming skin, his wide eyes and his shiny skin, and tries to be afraid. Even fear would be better than nothing.

“Have you thought about it?” he asks, and the seriousness in his tone, it makes her look at him more closely. There’s none of the usual glee that usually tints his every word.

“Are you worried about me?” she scoffs. The notion is ridiculous.

“Not!”

“You could have told me she was back.”

“Now why would I do that, dearie?” he asks, before leaning backwards and dropping out of the window.

Snow wakes then, with a thoughtful look on her face.

“I know what to do now,” she mutters. She stands up, supporting herself on Regina’s shoulder, and she walks towards the bed.

“I couldn’t before,” she says. “But you’re here now. I can do it if you’re here.”

Her hand sneaks under the oversized pillows, like she’s looking for something, and Regina’s curiosity gets the better of her, so she stands and she joins her.

“Everything will be alright now,” Snow tells her, as she turns around to face her, an arrow clutched in her pale hands. The tip should be gleaming sharp metal but is dark and oily instead. Regina takes several steaps back, putting as much dstance between herself and Snow as possible, but the girl doesn’t seem to notice.

“Everything will be alright now,” Snow says, as she takes the arrow and plunges it low on her stomach, a smile on her face.

 

 

15.

 

Regina presses her hands against the wound on Snow’s belly, though she knows it won’t stop the bleeding. Nothing will stop the bleeding.

“You silly girl,” she says. “Why did you do it?”

“I was tired,” Snow rasps. “I was so tired.”

She closes her eyes and lays her head against Regina’s chest, and she looks peaceful, quiet, the madness has finally left her eyes and Regina can’t blame her for wanting to end it.

Mother will be angry though, she will be so angry.

“Rumplestiltskin!” she calls.

“Well, that was unexpected,” he deadpans, looking down at the fading girl in her arms.

“You wanted me here,” she tells him. “You wanted me back. Why?”

“This is where you were meant to be,” he says. “You were never supposed to leave!”

“You’re lying. You don’t care about that. You don’t care about what people are supposed to do. I’ve seen you change the fate of entire kingdom’s with the stroke of a pen. You want something. You did all this because you wanted me here, so tell me, why?”

“I think not!”

“You wanted something. Mother will be back any second now. She’ll take a look at Snow White and either give her an antidote or let her die. And your chance will be gone. Tell me. What do you want?”

“I’ll offer you a deal-” he starts, but he is quickly cut off by Regina.

“No. No deals. You’ve been taunting me for years. You want me to do something. Fine, I’ll do it. But I want something in exchange.”

Rumplestiltskin doesn’t answer. He doesn’t answer for a very long time and Regina thinks she’s overestimated how much he really wants her. How much he needs her. Until he speaks again.

“What do you want?” he asks.

And that is the question, isn’t it?

Regina wants to go home. She wants to wake up in the middle of the night because she’s cold and Robin has hogged all the covers again. She wants to struggle with a needle and thread, and give up on cooking anything more complicated than oats and baked apples. She wants Snow to stop dying in her arms. She wants half a dozen children clinging to her skirts. She wants her mother to go away and stay gone. She wants to never have heard the name Rumplestiltskin.

“You can’t give me what I want,” she says. “But you offered me a choice,” she continues. She looks down at Snow’s face, even paler than usual, and thinks about _If you knew then what you know now_ , and thinks about all those people who sat at her table, who sought refuge under her roof, the ones buried behind the barn, she thinks about all the half dozen arrows she picked out of Robin’s chest.

“Would you save her again?” Rumplestiltskin asks, almost gleefully. “Knowing what she’s become? Knowing what she’s done? Would you still save her life?”

“I would,” Regina says, though it costs her.

Rumplestiltskin’s face falls.

“What do you want?” she asks again.

And then he laughs. It’s shrill, and awkward, and it lasts too long.

“Would you save her now?” he asks. “If you could avoid this? IF you could make it so this never happened? If you could keep her pure and innocent?”

She thinks about little girl Snow, on that spooked horse, scared out of her mind, and she thinks about her on that night, that last night, when she was brave and strong and she would have defied the king himself to set Regina free.

“If you could save that husband of yours,” he adds. “Even if he never met you, even if he never learned your name. If you could assure his continued safety, would you?”

If he was alright. Alive. Well. Even if she never saw his face again, she would do anything, and it must show in her face because Rumplestiltskin is vibrating with unrepressed joy now.

“If no one had to suffer but yourself, is that a price you would be willing to pay?”

She looks up. Straight into those gleaming eyes of his.

“I would,” she says.

 

 

[the end]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Snow was creepy af, and my poor baby Regina really is screwed in every single universe, and Cora is scary and evil.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry I couldn't come up wth a better title, but I'm quite fond of this one by now, and I don't think I'll be changing it any time soon. 
> 
> I publish this on tumblr first, so if you want to follow me over there my url is also mauscapade. Be warned though, I reblog everything Regina Mills, including Swan Queen and Dragon Queen, and Regina meta, and also a lot of random stuff.


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